


Just An Ache

by goodgirlwhoshopeful



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types, romelza - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Fluff, because we all deserve this and we got so little on the TV version, birth of Julia, daddy Ross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 13:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5006365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodgirlwhoshopeful/pseuds/goodgirlwhoshopeful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tis just an ache... I shall take a walk... Stretch my legs a while."</p><p>He wished he could say he had known it was not just an ache right from that moment... but, alas, if marriage had taught Ross Poldark one truth, it was that he was not as literate in the ways of women as he had once thought.</p><p>AU for the 2015 TV version - Ross arrives in time for the birth of Julia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just An Ache

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by an edit I made on my tumblr (http://goodgirlwhoshopeful.tumblr.com/post/130948037039/au-ross-arrives-in-time-for-demelza-going).... because, while I know the novels cover this and Demelza sends Ross away, I felt the TV version could have given us some much more feels.... So, this kind of wrote itself.

* * *

_"Your little hand's wrapped around my finger_  
 _And it's so quiet in the world tonight._  
 _Your little eyelids flutter 'cause you're dreaming,_  
 _So I tuck you in, turn on your favorite night light._  
  
_To you everything's funny,_  
 _you got nothing to regret._  
 _I'd give all I have, honey,_  
 _if you could stay like that._

_Oh darling, don't you ever grow up,_   
_Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little._   
_Oh darling, don't you ever grow up,_   
_Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple._   
_No one's ever burned you, nothing's ever left you scarred_   
_And even though you want to,_   
_just try to never grow up."_

**–– _'Never Grow Up'_ - Taylor Swift**

* * *

_"Tis just an ache... I shall take a walk... Stretch my legs a while."_

He wished he could say he had known it was not just an ache right from that moment... but, alas, if marriage had taught Ross Poldark one truth, it was that he was not as literate in the ways of women as he had once thought.

Instead, it had taken his dear friend Dwight with his medical vocation for Ross to suddenly realise what a fool he had been. 

Darkie, ever the most loyal of steeds, galloped with all the force he had urged her to under his heels and his thighs, bound for the familiarity of Nampara. His skin itched and spiked with heat under his overcoat as images his young wife overcome with burning pain threatened to choke him in panic.

 

_Her voice had broken through the darkness some months ago. "Judas––Ross!" Her voice was slurred with sleep as she gripped at his arm, pulling him from his own heavy slumber. He had been instantly panicked, as his heart rate spiked and energy shot through his chest._

_"Demelza? What is it?"_

_Through the darkness, she had let out tiny gasps, almost sounding like surprise. Quickly, he had sat up on his flank, curling to reach for her face in the dark._

_She had twisted in the sheets toward him and it took him a long moment to realise she was reaching for his hand. "The bairn, Ross! She be movin'!"_

_And sure enough, as his calloused hand smoothed over the smooth skin of her taught, firm stomach, he felt a flutter under his palm – flutter that came from underneath the skin._

_"Good God," he croaked, feeling an almost instantaneous lump in his throat. Their child...moving beneath his palm...Living...thriving...growing... All within his tiny, young wife. "So that's it then..." he had whispered. His eyes were now adjusting to the darkness as he regarded Demelza's pale stomach in wonder._

_"What?" Confused, her hand had found his face, smoothing over his infamous stubble on his jaw._

_"Miracles_ do _exist," he had breathed in wonder, almost under his breath. As if on cue, a sharp jab came from underneath his palm and Demelza gasped, jolting forward and gripping his hand even tighter._

_"Judas! Ha! A kick, t'was for sure! She be full o' spirit!" She gushed to herself, a giggle escaping keeping from within her breast as he clasped her hands over his on her bump. "Oh, Ross, I am so happy."_

_"Oh, my love..." he sighed, his lips against her bump, warming her skin under his breath. The child rolled as he spoke, and he found he threw his head back and laughed, on complete impulse._

_"She can hear 'er Pa!" she grinned, sitting up to lean forward and slide her hands into his unruly curls as he leaned over her. "She knows 'ur voice already, Ross."_

_The dark Poldark shook his head in mirth against her, almost rolling his eyes at his young wife, unable to wipe the smile from his face. "Demelza, you do not even know if our child is a girl – never mind that she knows such a thing. Is there no end to your fantasies?" he had questioned playfully, playing back down beside her, though one hand remained on her_ _stomach, gathering her shift._

_That said, the flutter came again as he spoke, only stoking his young wife's glee. "Ha! There again! Mark it, Ross! She does!"_

 

 

That had been such a moment of serenity – the first moment he felt the connection with his child begin to seize hold of his preoccupied mind, heart and soul.

But, honestly? He hadn't quite thought about as far ahead to moment he would actually  _meet_ his child...or the pain his young wife would have to endure simply to bring he or she into the world.

He practically threw Darkie into her stable, dumping the saddle onto the stand before running round the house and through the front door. His boots slapped against the solid floor as his threw his head side to side in search of Demelza. 

"Prudie!" he hollered from the hall, before hearing shuffling from the floor above. 

"Up 'ere, Mistur' Ross!" came his servants frantic reply. "The babe' be comin'!"

He took the stairs three at a time, almost tripping over himself to get to the master bedchamber – his feet feeling as though they were not his own. 

Within, he found Prudie and Ginny, steadfastly at work gathering linens, while Verity was sat on the bed, beside a flushed, panting Demelza. 

"Ross!" his cousin exclaimed in surprise at his noisy entrance. 

"Ross! No!" Demelza sighed, lying her head back against the pillows. He hurried to her side and took in her flushed appearance, the sheen of sweat adding an almost sickly parlour to her pale skin. 

"Demelza – My love – " he began, preparing for to launch into the reams of words of comfort he had thought up on his frantic ride from the Sambara Woods. Demelza, however, cut him short. 

"Ross – _please_ – I do'not want 'ee to see me this way – " Her voice was a dry whimper, the way it lacked its usual power and fight triggering a splintering pain right through Ross' chest. Her refusal shunted him, almost knocking him backward. 

"Demelza, what are you talking about?" He attempted to smile, hoping it would all result in some form of jest. "Of course I am staying _."_

 _"N––"_ She went to deny him, but suddenly her voice was robbed from her. Ross watched in horror as her face contorted with excruciating pain, her head thrown back and her throat craned for breath. "Oh,  _Judas. Judas!"_ The hand he held at her side suddenly gripped his with a physical strength he had not known she possessed, her short nails biting into his skin. It hurt, but he bite back his grimace, zeroing in on her face. 

"I will not hear of it, my love," he denied as the sight of her agony triggered his cold sweat anew. As the contraction seemed to subside, Demelza's sky-blue eyes locked onto his own as she sagged wearily, both with relief, but also with defeat, as she saw his resolve. "I stay with you."

"Dear Ross, perhaps it is not wise for a husband to see––" Verity began, but instantly halted by the look in her cousin's eyes. Before the assault of his defiance could take hold, Demelza began panting beside him. 

"'s comin' again!" she cried in despair as she gritted her teeth, preparing for the onslaught. Instantly, Ross went to work about her, unable to sit still. He picked up the basin, rinsing a rag into the cold water before dabbing it over his wife's slender face and neck. He watched her shudder, gripping his hand until knuckles turned white and suddenly knew that all previous times in his life that he had thought he had known helplessness, he had not. He had not known helplessness until he had had to watch his young, beloved wife become a slave to pain...while he could do nothing but sit and watch. 

"Make it stop," she'd begun to beg after a while. Prudie had gone to prepare the evening meal, while Ginny and her mother – an apparent expert in the delivery of babies – remained, along with he and Verity. The words twisted his gut. 

His nose and lips made contact with her clammy cheek, his voice remaining low and calm only as a result of _years_ of practice at restraint of his character. "Oh, my darling – for all the world, I would." She cried out, as though someone had struck her with a blade, and his bit down on the inside of his cheek to prevent his own anguish from spilling onto his face. "I wish I could shoulder all your pain while you felt nothing."

Demelza, in amongst the pain, tried to shake her head. "I'd...rather...it be...I...than you. I could not watch you–– _ah!"_

"Shh, _shh_ ," he cooed, squeezing cool water over her brow. "Don't try to speak."

"I cahn't do this, Ross." 

The words were like the whimper of a child and it almost choked him. It was a sound he would not forget for a long time, that he knew. Images of Demelza the day they met –  _"Don't 'ee 'child' me, Mister!" –_ filled his mind's eye. She was also so strong...so  _sure..._

"Yes, you can, my love! You can and you will... and do you know why?" In a moment of relief, Demelza shook her head against the pillow and his smooth her a sweat-drenched curl back from her eyes. "You're _Demelza Poldark!_ God broke the mould... You defy all convention, all logic... All boundaries. The woman I love is the strongest of all."

Through tearful eyes, red-rimmed and weary, drooping already, she managed a tiny smile. 

With the next contraction, all attempts by the women to conceal his wife's modesty were abandoned, as Demelza kicked away all the sheets that had tented over her legs in the hours past in aggravation, her shift slipping up past her thighs. 

"'Ere 'ee comes!" called Ginny's mother as she remained down between Demelza's legs, poised for inspection. "'ee need t'push, Mistress!"

And push she did. Ross watched in awe and immense fear as his young, physically waif-like wife roared and wailed, a sound that rivalled that of the most horrific of injuries he had witnessed in Virginia. His own chest heaved as he watched her struggle for breath, as though an invisible fist had her throat. 

"Good God, _breathe_ , Demelza!" Lowering his face to her level, he smoothed the cool rag over her red cheeks. Upon contact, she leant into his touch. with a whimper. He placed a flat hand against her breast as it rose and fell. Her heartbeat was feverish and violent under his palm – he was also sure it might leap out of her ribcage. Slowly, he inhaled until his lungs were full as she watched him intently. "Just as I am, you see?"

Through the pain that made her convulse, and tears that rolled one after the other down past her temples and into her curls, she finally began to breath in sync with his. "That's it, my love. My strong,  _beautiful_ girl."

He then made found himself glancing toward where Ginny and her mother worked at Demelza's ankles, and he paled. The blood was stark against the sheets, but that wasn't what shocked him...but the way at which her body bowed in submission to the force of nature. Underneath his breath, he swore, as his child's pale head became visible as it began to protrude from Demelza's intimate anatomy. It left him gut-wrenchingly humbled and desperate to get down on his knees to bow before all the women of the world. How _was_ it men were considered superior? It was suddenly all the more clear to him that no word more false had ever been spoken.

Watching his child finally slip from his wife's body and weep freely, heartily and healthily, Ross did so too... though his own tears were silent.

 

"'Tis a girl, Mister Ross! Jus' as Mistress said t'would be!" came the excited coo from young Ginny as he mouth hastily cleaned the blood from the tiny baby. Gazing at the infant, Ross' vision began to blur. She wailed with the unique, unnerving shrill cries only a newborn could achieve, spurring his heart rate into a protective frenzy instantly. Her tiny pink body trembled already with the cold as her tiny fingers, splayed wide, waved my her sides, her petite, downy head covered by a shock of auburn hair.

"Oh, 'melza, she has your hair," he whimpered, almost to himself as he held out his hands toward where Ginny's mother held his child, beckoning his fingers with a sudden urgency. 

Demelza gasped for breath through her sobs, her small hand clasped at her mouth as her chest violently rose and fell. Falling onto his knees beside her, he worshipped her face with kisses, determined to show his appreciation and awe, turning away only to take their child, now completely free from Demelza and clean of blood, into his arms. (He felt his heart in his mouth as he did so, as the child was so  _very small,_ and suddenly his arms, strong with years of labour, felt like they were made of seaweed.) As he held his daughter's slight, most non-existent weight, it choked him how much his size dwarfed her...how easily this cruel world could hurt her... but mostly, how much he already loved her. "Oh, Demelza... She's beautiful." 

"Let me see her. Where is she? Where's my baby?" Demelza croaked almost deliriously, as she lay exhausted against the pillows, craning her neck in his direction.

Sniffing hard and shaking his head to attempt to clear his tears, he cleared his throat and perched at her side. "Here, love. I have her." 

Holding his breath, he placed their tiny baby into his wife's awaiting arms, keeping a strong arm underneath the both of them. Settling against her side, his waistcoat and crevat long forgotten, he didn't notice their friends leave... He didn't notice anything that night at all. Not the cold draft on his neck, not the drunken songs of Judd below, nor the scratching mousing habits of Tabitha, the old farm cat...

His attentions would never stray again. Not now he had such a precious, delicate child to protect. 

Long after Demelza fell into an exhausted slumber against his side with their little girl – they decided on Julia, after his mother – still against her breast, now full and content, Ross carried on gazing at her – at both of them. Carefully so not to wake her, he lay Demelza down properly beneath the sheets and lifted Julia against his chest. She stirred some, but thankfully not enough to cry, blinking at him blearily once away from her mother. He expected there to be no recognition there - half expected her to wail - but to his surprise, her tiny peach-like face nuzzled against the bare skin of his chest where his nightshirt shirt had fallen  open, and she made no sound other than what he could only describe a content newborn grizzle.

Carefully, he placed her down in her cot bed, only to tie the fabric sling across his chest. The entire time his hands were not touching her, his eyes gazed over her, meeting her wide, uncomprehending newborn eyes. (Eyes that were brown, like his own.) 

"Shall I show the ocean, little one? Since your mother should sleep now until you are hungry again. Hm?" 

With the help of Prudie - (that surprised him beyond belief) - he swathed Julia in layers and secured her into the sling. As he made his up and through Demelza's favourite place, the meadow, he told this tiny new human as such, that her mother was the most earnestly beautiful and wonderful person he had met in his life, and all about how their meeting came to be. 

As he reached the cliff edge - Demelza's favourite place to watch the skies - he gazed up at fire of the Cornish sunset,  _sure_ to the heavens that his heart might be on fire in his chest. The love he felt in that moment was so all-consuming, so intoxicating, he did not know how he ever was without it. Checking down against his chest, Julia carried on with her newborn murmurings, and it was then he realised they were both, in affect, talking to themselves. 

 _She doesn't understand you, Poldark,_ he told himself, his inner judge shaking his head in bemusement at his habits.  _Talking to a babe... Are you_ quite _sure you are not mad?_

 

As the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, and the deep flame colours of the skies along with it, Ross lolled back toward the sanctuary of Nampara house, though the warmth of his smile had yet to fade by a single degree. As the long grasses brushed against his legs, his mind chased through all the moments he and his beloved had shared on these grounds in the short few years that they world had given them together thus far; working side by side, late-afternoon strolls, sunset kisses, the way he'd stand at the wall and gaze over the meadow as she sang to herself and picked wild flowers, unaware he was watching her... And, until recently, how she'd sit amongst the cornflowers with her large, child-bearing stomach and tell their unborn child stories and sing to her... shyly carrying on, even when he joined her, laying his head against her protruding lap... Suddenly, it was as though none of it had been real.  _How_ could it have been? It was a life far too beautiful for someone such as he, surely...

No man of Ross' class would ever consider carrying a newborn baby in such a manner as he did that day – never mind out, where people might see them. Contraptions such as mothering slings were for labouring peasants wives who could not afford not to work because they have a newborn, not for genteel women who had servants and sat around sewing all day. The thought made Ross chuckle to himself, then again, and again... until he simply laughed out toward the waves, though careful not to jostle Julia. "If those of my apparent 'sort' could see us now, sweet Julia," he chuckled, delicately curling his large fingers behind her head, settling arm under her to draw her close enough to kiss. "We'd be quite the gossip."

Once he'd lifted her free from the sling in the warmth of the parlour, he held her up to his eye level, holding her head as she could not do so herself. Her wide eyes met his, too large for her head, and in spite of himself, Ross felt the tell-tale tug of bewitchment in his chest that left him breathless, finding he was unable to resist covering her minute velvet baby cheeks with kisses for whole minutes at a time.

As her eyes followed his, it was like they shared a secret. "I suppose 'tis a grand thing that we are used to such things around here, is it not?"


End file.
